1. ‘”He carries himself (atman) in two parts, the breath and
the sun. These are its two paths, the inner and the outer.
They both move on in a day and a night. The sun is the
outer self, the breath the inner self. The movement of the
inner self is measured by the movement of the outer self.
Someone has said: The one who, knowing, freed from evil, the
overseer of the eye, his mind purified, based upon that, with his
sight turned inwards.
‘”The going of the outer self is measured by the going
of the inner self. Someone has said: The person made of gold
within the sun, who watches this earth from his golden seat, is
the one who rests within, in the heart-lotus, and eats food.
2. ‘”The one who rests within, in the heart-lotus, and eats
food is the fire resting in the sky, the solar fire called time,
the invisible one who eats all beings as food.”
‘”What is the lotus? What is it made of?”
‘”The lotus is space. The four directions and the four
intermediate directions form its petals. The breath and the
sun move down its stem. One should worship them as OM,
with the syllable, the utterances (m,ahrti), and the Savitri.
3. ‘”There are two forms of brahman, the shaped and the
unshaped. What is shaped is the unreal. What is unshaped
is the real; it is brahman: it is light. What is light is the
sun. This is OM. It became the self. It divided itself into
three. OM is three elements. Through them, all this is
woven on it as warp and weft. Someone has said, One
should apply (yu}-) oneself while meditating on this: the sun is
OM.
4. ‘”Elsewhere it has been said:98 What the Udgitha is, the
reverberation is: what the reverberation is, the Udgitha is. So the
sun is the Udgitha: it is the reverberation.
‘”Someone has said: . . . the Udgitha,” called the
reverberation, the leader, with light as its form, without sleep, free
from old age, free from death, with three feet, with three
syllables: again it should be known as fivefold, hidden in the
secret place.
‘”Someone has said. The three-footed brahman with its roots
above: its branches are space, air, fire, water, earth etc. This
brahman is called by the name of the one fig tree. Its light is
what the sun is. It belongs to the syllable OM, so one should
worship it ceaselessly with the syllable OM. It alone is the awakener
of this:
‘”Someone has said: This syllable is pure.
This syllable is supreme.
Knowing this syllable,
Whatever one wishes for, one has.
5. “‘Elsewhere it has been said, What OM is its
sound-body. Feminine, masculine and neuter are its
gender-body. Fire, air and the sun are its light-body.
Brahma, Rudra and Visnu are its overlord-body. The
Garhapatya, Daksinagni and Ahavaniya are its
mouth-body. Re, yajus and saman are its knowledge-body.
BHUH, BHUVAH and SVAH are its world-body. Past, present
and future are its time-body. Breath, fire and the sun are
its heat-body. Food, water and the moon are its
growing-body. Intelligence, mind and sense of ‘I’ are its
consciousness-body. Breath, lower breath and diffused breath
are its breath-body. So by saying ‘OM’ these bodies come
to be praised, worshipped and achieved. Someone has said:
Satyakama, what the syllable OM is brahman, both the higher
and the lower.
6. ‘”Now this was unuttered.110 Truth, Prajapati, after
raising heat, uttered: BHOH BHUVAH SVAH. This is the
coarsest body of Prajapati, the world-body. SVAH is its head,
BHUVAH its navel, BHOH its feet, the sun its eye: for the
great element of a person depends on the eye. For this
element moves by eye. Truth is the eye. Placed in the eye,
the person moves among all objects. So one should worship
BHOH BHUVAH SVAH. By it Prajapati comes to be
worshipped as the self of all, the sight of all. Someone has
said: This is the all-bearing body of Prajapati, Everything is hidden
in it, and it is hidden in all this. So one should worship.
7. ‘”Tat savitur varenyam. Savitr is the sun. He is to be
chosen (pra-vr-) by one who desires the self: so say the
scholars of brahman.
“‘Now bhargo devasya dhimahi. The god (deva) is Savitr.
So I contemplate the one who is called its glory (bhargas):
so say the scholars of brahman.
‘”Now dhiyo yo nah pracodayat. Minds (dhiyah) are
intelligences: so say the scholars of brahman.
‘”Now glory. The one who is hidden in the sun, the star
in the eye, is called glory. It is glory (bhargas) because of
its going (gati) by light (bha): or it is glory because it parches
(bhrJ-): so say the scholars of brahman.
‘”It is bha because it lights (bhas-) the worlds. It is ra
because it delights (raj-) beings. It is ga because creatures
go (gam-) into it and come (a-gam-) out of it. So because it
is bha ra ga it is bhargas. It is the sun (sun,a) because it is
perpetually produced (su-). It is Savitr because it inspires (or
presses Soma: su-). It is Aditya because it carries off (d-da-).
It is water (apah) because it causes to swell (d-pyd-).
‘”Someone has said: Where knowledge has become dual one
hears, sees, smells, tastes and touches: the self knows all. Where
knowledge has become non-dual, freed from object, cause and action,
without speech, incomparable, indescribable, what is it? It cannot
be spoken.
8. ‘”The self is Isana, Sambhu, Bhava, Rudra, Prajapati,
the All-Creator, the golden embryo, truth, breath, the
goose, the teacher, Vishnu, Narayana, Arka, Savitr,
Dhatr, Vidhatr,118 the emperor, Indra, Indu. He, the one
who gives heat, hidden by the thousand-eyed golden egg
like fire hidden by fire, is the one that one must want to
know, must seek for. By granting freedom from fear to all
beings, going to the forest, and setting aside the objects
of sense, one may win him from one’s own body, Of all forms, yellow, all knowing,
The supreme goal, the one light, giving heat.
Thousand-rayed, existing in a hundred forms, The sun rises as the breath of beings.
9. ‘”So the one who knows this has both as self. He
meditates on the self, sacrifices to the self. This is meditation,
mind resting in the practice, purified mind, as praised by
the wise. One should purify the mind by chanting Touched
by Leftovers. One chants the mantra: Whether it be left over or
touched by leftovers, or given by an evil man, or impure from a
stillbirth, may the purifier of Vasu, may Agni and the rays of
Savitr purify my food, and anything else that is ill-done.
First one surrounds it125 with water. One makes offering
with the five: To the breath, SVAHA! To the lower breath,
SVAHA! To the diffused breath, SVAHA! To the central breath,
SVAHA! To the up-breath, SVAHA!
‘”One eats the rest with speech restrained. Afterwards
one surrounds it again with water. Having sipped, while
sacrificing to the self, one meditates on the self with two
verses, As breath, as fire and You are all:
As breath, as fire, the supreme self
Is sought for refuge, the one with five airs:
Being pleased, may he please all,
The enjoyer of all!
You are all, you are in all men:
All, being born, is upheld by you.
May all offerings enter you,
And creatures, too, go where you are, the all-immortal.
So by this method the eater does not become food
again.
10. ‘”‘Something else should be known: there is a further
development of the sacrifice of the self—food and the eater
of food. To explain further: the person is the watcher who
rests inside matter. He is the enjoyer: he enjoys the food
of nature. The elemental self is its food: matter is its agent.
So with its three strands it is the object of enjoyment.
The person rests inside. What is seen is the proof here.
Since all animals are produced from seed, the seed is the
object of enjoyment.130 By this is explained the fact that
matter is the object of enjoyment. So the enjoyer is the
person, nature is the object of enjoyment, and resting in it
he enjoys it. The food of nature, through the development
of the distinction of the three strands, is the subtle body,
which begins with with the great and ends with the
particularities. In this way the fourteenfold path131 is
explained: This world, known as joy, sorrow and delusion, has
become food.
“‘For as long as there is no bringing forth, there is no
grasping of sweetness. It, too, turns into food, in three
states. They are childhood, youth and old age—because of
development, it becomes food. When matter has reached
manifestation in this way, it can be got hold of. Then it has
the sweetnesses, intelligence, etc.: they are called intelligence,
resolution and conceit. Now the five sweetnesses are the
sense objects, likewise all the activities of the senses and
the activities of the breath. So there is manifest food and
unmanifest food. The enjoyer of it is free of the strands.
Because he is the enjoyer, he clearly possesses consciousness.
Just as, among the gods, Agni is the eater of food and Soma
is food, the one who knows this enjoys food with Agni.
Because of the saying. The elemental self is called Soma and the
one who has the unmanifest as his mouth is Agni, the person
enjoys the three-stranded matter with the unmanifest as his
mouth.
“The one who knows this is a renouncer, a yogin and
a sacrificer to the self. Just as no one touches amorous
women if they have entered an empty house, the one who
does not touch sense-objects is a renouncer, a yogin and a
sacrificer to the self.
11. ‘”Food is the highest form of the self, for breath is
made of food. If one does not eat, one becomes unable to
think, unable to hear, unable to touch, unable to see, unable
to speak, unable to smell, unable to taste, and one gives up
one’s breaths.
‘”Someone has said: If one eats one becomes filled with
breath and becomes able to think, able to hear, able to touch, able
to speak, able to taste, able to smell, able to see.
‘”Someone has said:
Whatever creatures depend on earth
Are born from food.
By food they live,
And into it go in the end.
12. “”Elsewhere it has been said: All beings fly out day by
day desiring to get food. The sun takes up food with its rays, and
so gives heat. When sprinkled with food, the breaths digest. By
food, fire burns.
“Through the desire for food, all this was shaped by
brahman. So one should worship food as the self. Someone
has said:
Beings are born from food:
Born, they grow by food.
It is eaten and it eats beings,
Hence it is called food.
13. ‘”Elsewhere it has been said: Food is the form of the
blessed Visnu that is called the All-bearing. Breath is the essence
of food; mind of breath; knowledge of mind; joy of knowledge.
“‘The one who knows this becomes endowed with food,
endowed with breath, endowed with mind, endowed with
knowledge, endowed with joy. The one who knows this,
resting within them, eats food in whatever beings there are
that eat food.
Food keeps away old age;
Food, it is said, makes folk well disposed;
Food is the breath of animals;
Food is the eldest; food, it is said, is medicine.
14. ‘”Elsewhere it has been said: Food is the source (yoni)
of all this. Time is the source of food, the sun of time. Its
form consists of the units of time, moments and so on: t is the year, with its twelve parts. Half of it belongs to
Agni and half to Varuna. In the sun’s course from Magha
to half-way through Sravistha it belongs to Agni, and in its upward course from the constellation of the Serpents to
halfway through 6ravistha it belongs to Soma. In it, each
part of the self has nine divisions according to the
corresponding progress of the sun.
‘”Because of the subtlety, this is the measure: time is
measured by it. Without a measure, there is no getting hold
of the thing to be measured. Moreover, because of its
separateness, the thing to be measured becomes the
measure for the purpose of making itself known. Someone
has said: The one who worships time as brahman moves on
through all the divisions of time that there are, and time moves
very far away from him.
‘”Someone has said:
Because of time, beings move on;
Because of time, they grow up;
In time they reach their end;
Time, though unshaped, possesses shapes.
15. ‘”There are two forms of brahman, time (kala) and the
timeless (akala). That which was before the sun is timeless,
without parts (akala). That which began with the sun is time,
with parts (sakala). The form of that with parts is the year:
for all creatures are born from the year; once bom here,
they live by the year; in the year they meet their end. So
the year is Prajapati, time, food, the nest of brahman, and
the self. Someone has said:
Time ripens all beings
In the great self.
But the one who knows in what
Time is ripened, knows the Veda.
16. “‘The time that has a body is the ocean of creatures.
Resting in it is the one called Savitr from whom the moon,
stars, planets, year, etc. are produced. From them comes all
this here, whatever is seen in this world, fair or foul. So
brahman has the sun as its self.149 So one should worship
the sun under the name of time: some say that the sun is
brahman. So someone has said:
The Hotr, the enjoyer, the offering, the mantra,
The sacrifice, Visnu, Prajapati
He is all these, the lord, the witness
Who shines in yonder circle.
17. ‘”In the beginning all this was brahman, one, infinite:
infinite to the east, infinite to the south, infinite to the west,
infinite to the north, infinite upwards and downwards,
infinite on every side. The directions, east and so on, do
not apply to it, for the supreme self is inconceivable either
across, downwards or upwards, immeasurable, unborn,
unguessable, unthinkable. He has space as his self.150 In the
universal dissolution, he is the one awake. From space he
awakens this, which is pure consciousness. By this it is
born, and in it it meets its end. It is the radiant form of
this that gives heat in the sun, and the brighter light that
is in a smokeless fire, and the one who rests in the belly
and digests food. Someone has said: The one who is in fire,
the one who is in the heart and the one who is in the sun are
one,
“The one who knows this attains oneness with the one,
18. ‘”Then there is the method of practice called the
six-limbed yoga: restraint of the breath, withdrawal,
meditation, maintaining, thinking, concentration. When,
seeing by this, one sees him, coloured like a gold piece, the
maker, the powerful one, the person, womb of brahman
then knowing him one leaves behind good and evil and
makes all one in the highest unfailing. Someone has said:
Just as deer and birds do not resort
To a mountain on fire,
Faults never resort
To one who knows brahman.
19. ‘”Elsewhere it has been said,
When one who knows, restraining the outer mind and causing
the objects of sense to enter the breath rests without forming
concepts. Since the life which is called the breath is
produced from that which is not breath, it is the breath. One
should maintain the breath in what is called the fourth state.
‘”Someone has said:
As not-thought in the midst of thought,
Unthinkable supreme secret,
One should meditate on thought.
That is the subtle form without dependency.
20.
‘”Elsewhere it has been said:
Now the supreme contemplation of this. By pressing together
the palate and the tip of the tongue, by the cessation of speech,
mind and breath, one sees brahman by investigating. When, on the dissolution of the mind, by the self one sees the self, which
is subtler than the subtle, shining, then, by the self seeing the
self, one becomes selfless. Because one is selfless, one can be thought
to be uncountable, without source—the mark of liberation.164 That
is the highest secret. Someone has said:
By the calming of thought
One destroys action both fair and foul:
With self calmed, resting in the self
One wins unfailing
joy.
21.
‘”Elsewhere it has been said:
The channel called Susumna, which goes upward together
with the breath, cuts through the palate. When it is joined with
the OM and the mind, the breath can go out by it. By turning
back the tongue-tip against the palate and harnessing the senses,
as greatness one may see greatness. Then one reaches selflessness.
Because one is selfless, one no longer experiences joy and sorrow:
one reaches absoluteness,
‘”Someone has said:
Setting up the highest before one,
One should restrain one’s breath.
By the shoreless one should cross to the other shore
And afterwards become united (yuj-) in the head.
22. “‘Elsewhere it has been said: There are two brahmans
to be named, sound and the soundless. The soundless is revealed
through sound. The sound is OM. By it one goes out upwards
and finds cessation in the soundless. This is the bourne, this is
immortality, this is union169 and also ultimate bliss.170 Just as a
spider goes up outwards by its thread and finds space, so one
meditates on OM and by it goes up outwards and finds
independence.
‘”Others, those who profess sound, practise differently.
By joining ear and thumb, they listen to the sound of the
space within the heart. That is compared to seven things:
rivers, a bell, a metal pot, a wheel, the croaking of frogs,
rain, and the sound made in a windless place. Going beyond
their separate characteristics, they meet their end in the
supreme soundless unmanifest brahman. There they are
without separate nature, indistinguishable, like different
flavours combined into sweetness.
Someone has said:
There are two brahmans to be known,
The sownd-brahman and the supreme.
By bathing in the sound-brahman
One wins the brahman that is supreme.
23. ‘”Elsewhere it has been said: What the sound is is OM:
this is the imperishable. The peak of it is peaceful, soundless,
fearless, sorrowless, joyful, content, steadfast, immovable,
immortal, unfallen, constant, known as Visnu: one should
worship it to achieve supremacy over all.
Someone has said:
The god, the higher and the lower,
Is called by name the OM:
Without sound, become void,
One should then concentrate on it in its place in the head.
24. ‘”Elsewhere it has been said: The body is the bow; OM
is the arrow; the mind is its point. By piercing the target of
darkness one comes to the darkness which is pervaded by
non-darkness. Then by piercing that which is pervaded, one has
seen the supreme brahman, blazing like a circle of torch-light,
the colour of the sun, powerful, beyond the darkness. That which
is in the sun shines also in the moon, in fire and in lightning,
By seeing it, one becomes immortal.
Someone has said:
The meditation on the supreme entity within
Is placed on the objects of sense,
So the knowledge that is without distinction
Becomes subject to distinction.
The joy that is witnessed by the self
When the mind is dissolved
Is brahman, the immortal, the pure:
It is the bourne, it is the world.
25. ‘”Elsewhere it has been said: When one’s senses are hidden
as if by sleep, then, unmastered, with completely pure mind one
sees, as if in a dream, in a gap in the senses, the one who leads
on out (pranetr,) who is called the OM (pranava,), in the form
of light, free from sleep, free from old age, free from death, and
free from sorrow. Then one also becomes one who leads on out
who is called OM, in the form of light, free from sleep, free from
old age, free from death, and free from sorrow.
Someone has
said:
Since one joins or unites (yuj-)
In many ways
Breath and OM and all,
It is known as yoga.
Since it is the oneness of breath and mind
And senses too,
The renunciation of all becoming
Is named yoga.
26. ‘”Elsewhere it has been said: Just as a bird catcher draws
up the water-fowl with a device made of net, and offers them in
the fire that is his belly, so one draws up the breaths with the
OM and offers them in a fire that is free from disease. Then one
is like a heated pot. Just as a heated pot blazes up through contact
with melted butter, grass or sticks, the one who is called ‘not-breath’
blazes up through contact with breath. That which blazes up is
the form of Brahma, Visnu’s highest step, the Rudra-ness of Rudra.
Divided up into countless parts it fills the worlds.
Someone has said:
Just like sparks from fire
Come rays from the sun,
And so too do breaths, etc.
Come forth in order here.
27. ‘”Elsewhere it has been said: This is the brightness of
brahman, the supreme immortal, the bodiless. The warmth of the
body is its ghee. It is set, visible, in space: they dispel the space
within the heart with one-pointed mind so that its light strikes
them, as it were. Then one quickly attains the state of that,
Just as a lump of iron placed in the earth quickly181 attains the
condition of earth, just as fire, blacksmiths and so on have no
power over a lump of iron that is in the clay-like state, thought
perishes along with its support.
‘”Someone has said:
The treasury formed of the space in the heart,
Joy, the supreme abode.
It is itself, and our yoga
And the splendour of fire and the sun.
28. ‘”Elsewhere it has been said: When one has gone beyond
the elements, senses and objects, then one seizes the bow whose
string is the renouncer’s life and whose stave is steadfastness,
and with an arrow made of freedom from conceit one strikes down
the primal door-keeper of brahman. (That overseer of conceit, who
has confusion as his crown, craving and envy as his earrings, and
sloth, drunkenness and impurity as his staff of office, seizes the
bow whose string is anger and whose stave is greed, and kills
beings with an arrow made of wanting.) After killing him, one crosses to the farther shore of the space within the heart on the
boat of the OM.
Then, as the space within becomes visible, slowly, as a miner
in search of minerals enters a mine,166 one should enter the hall
of brahman. Then by the guru’s instruction one should throw off
the sheath of brahman with its four layers of net. Then pure,
cleansed, void, at peace, without breath, selfless, without end,
indestructible, steadfast, eternal, unborn, independent, one rests in
one’s own greatness. Then, seeing the one who rests in his own
greatness, one looks upon the wheel of samsara as a wheel that
rolls on.
‘”Someone has said:
For the embodied one who has practised for six months,
Eternally freed,
The endless supreme secret,
The right yoga, moves on:
But never for the embodied one
Who is all ablaze,
Pierced by passion and darkness,
Attached to children, wife and family.'”
29. After he had said this, Sakayanya went within his
heart. He paid homage to him. Then he said: ‘0 king,
by this knowledge of brahman the sons of Prajapati
mounted the path of brahman.
‘By the practice of yoga one achieves contentment,
endurance of the pairs, and peacefulness. “One should
not make known this supreme secret to one who is not a
son, not a student, or not at peace”: so one should give
it to one who is devoted to nothing else, who is endowed
with all virtues.
30. ‘OM. One should be in a dean place, clean, resting in
purity (sattva), studying truth, speaking truth, meditating on
truth, sacrificing to truth. Then one finds fulfilment in the
true brahman, that delights in truth. Having become other,
and cut what binds one to the fruits of that, one lives
free from expectation towards others as to oneself, freed
from fear, without desire, having attained indestructible,
measureless joy. This is the ultimate digging up of the
supreme treasure—freedom from desire.
The person made of all desires, whose distinguishing
mark is determination, will and conceit, is bound: the one
opposite to this is freed.
‘On this, some say: “Under the influence of the differentiation of nature, the strand has taken on the bondage
of the self to determination.”198 When the fault of
determination perishes, there is liberation. By mind one sees;
by mind one hears. “Desire, imagination, doubt, trust, lack
of trust, constancy, inconstancy, shame, meditation, fear—all
this is mind.”199 Carried along by the floods of the strands,
soiled, unsteady, fickle, greedy, yearning, unconcentrated,
one goes on to conceit. Thinking, “This am I, this is mine”,
one binds oneself by oneself like a bird in a net.
‘So the person whose distinguishing mark is
determination, will and conceit, is bound: the one opposite
to this is freed. Therefore one should stay without
determination, without will, without conceit. “This is the sign
of liberation; this is the path to brahman here; this is the
opening of the door here: by it one will go to the far shore
of the darkness. Here all desires are brought together. On
this folk say:
‘”When the five knowings cease,
Together with the mind,
And the intelligence does not stir,
They call that the highest bourne,”
After Sakayanya had said this, he went within his heart.
He paid homage to him,201 revering him in the proper way:
and having done what was to be done, as Marut he went
by the northern path. One cannot get there by a lesser road.
This is the road to brahman here. Breaking through the door
of the sun one goes up outward.203 On this folk say:
‘The one who, lamp-like, rests in the heart
Has endless rays,
White and black, brown and blue,
Tawny and faintly red.
‘A single one of these, set above,
Breaks through the circle of the sun,
And gains the world of brahman.
By it folk go to the highest bourne.
‘It has another hundred rays
Arrayed above
By which one wins the very own homes
Of the troops of gods.
‘Below them, it has rays of many forms, Faintly glowing.
By them here the powerless one
Wanders round to experience his actions.’
So the blessed sun is the cause of creation, heaven, and release.
31. Someone has said: ‘With what as self do the senses
go forth? What here goes out of them, or what controls
them?’
Someone has replied: ‘With the self as self. The self
goes out of them, or controls them.’ There are avsarases and
maricis, daughters of the sun, so-called. So he eats the
sense-objects with five rays.
Which one is the self? The one who is pure, cleansed,
empty, said to have the primal mark of peace, is to be
grasped by its own signs. Some say that the sign of the
one who is signless is what heat, and that which is pervaded
by it, is to fire and what the most delicious flavour is to
water. Some say that it is speech, hearing, the eye, the ear,
the breath. Others say that it is intelligence, steadfastness,
memory, knowing. But those are to it what shoots are to a
seed, and what smoke, flames and sparks are to fire. On
this folk say:
Just like sparks from fire
Come rays from the sun,
And so too do breaths etc.
Come forth in order here.
32. All breaths, all worlds, all Vedas, all gods, all beings
come up from this one in the self. Its inner meaning (upanisad)
is ‘the truth of the truth’. ‘As smoke billows out in all
directions from a fire that has been laid with damp fuel,
just so is everything breathed out from this great being: the
Rgveda, the Yajurveda, the Samaveda, the hymns of the
Atharvans and Arigirases, history, legend, science, the
Upanisads, verses, sutras, explanatory passages and
expositions, all beings are breathed out from it.’
33. The fire which is the year has five bricks. Its bricks
are spring, summer, the rains, autumn and winter. It has a
head, two wings, a back and a tail. This is the man-shaped
fire. This is the first fire-laying of Prajapati. With its hands
it has thrown the patron of the sacrifice up to middle-air
and offered him to air.
Breath is air; breath is a fire. Its bricks are the breath,
the lower breath, the diffused breath, the up-breath and the
central breath. It has a head, two wings, a back and a tail.
This is the man-shaped fire. This is middle-air, the second
fire-laying of Prajapati. With its hands it has thrown the
patron of the sacrifice up to the sky and offered him to
Indra.
The sun is Indra; it is a fire. Its bricks are the Rgveda,
the Yajurveda, the Samaveda, the hymns of the Atharvans
and Angirases, and history and legend. It has a head, two
wings, a back and a tail. This is the man-shaped fire. This
is sky, the third fire-laying of Prajapati. With its hands it
makes an offering of the patron of the sacrifice to the knower
of the self. Then the knower of the self has thrown him up
and offered him to brahman. There he becomes blissful,
contented.
34. Earth is the Garhapatya; middle-air is the Daksinagni;
sky is the Ahavaniya. They are the Pavamana, Pavaka and
5uci. He makes offering in the mouth. Hence the fire
of digestion is the coming together of ‘the purifying’, ‘the
purifier’ and ‘the clean’. So fire is to be sacrificed to, thought
of, praised and meditated on. Taking the melted butter,
the patron of the sacrifice desires to meditate on the deity:
“A bird of golden hue
Is set in the heart, in the sun—
Cormorant, goose, brightness, bull—
To him we sacrifice in this fire.’
so he understands the meaning of the mantra. He should
meditate on ‘the lovely glory of Savitr’ as being that of the
one who rests within the intelligence. Meditating, he
recollects the state of peace of mind, and places it in the
self.
So the recollection of the heaven of the state of brahman
is barred to those who do not make offering to fire, think
of fire, or meditate on fire. So fire is to be sacrificed to,
thought of, praised, meditated on.
35. ‘Homage to Agni, dwelling in the earth, protector of a
world! Assign a world to this patron of the sacrifice. Homage
to Vayu, dwelling in middle-air, protector of a world! Assign
a world to this patron of the sacrifice. Homage to the sun,
dwelling in the sky, protector of a world! Assign a world
to this patron of the sacrifice. Homage to brahman, dwelling
in everything, protector of everything! Assign everything to
this patron of the sacrifice,
‘The face of truth is concealed
By a vessel made of gold.
Reveal it, Pusan, to Visnu
Who has truth as his dharma.
That person who is in the sun—I am he.’
The one who has truth as his dharma is the sun-ness of
the sun—the white form. Just a portion of the energy
that exists within the space is that which is in the middle
of the sun, in the eye, and in fire. This is brahman; this is
the immortal; this is glory; this is the one who has truth
as his dharma. Just a portion of the energy that exists within
the sky is the immortal which is in the middle of the
sun, of which Soma and the breaths are shoots. This is
brahman, this is the immortal; this is glory; this is the one
who has truth as his dharma. Just a portion of the energy
that exists within the sky is the yajus which shines in the
middle of the sun. OM water light juice immortal brahman
BHUH BHUVAH SVAH OM.
The eight-footed pure goose,
Three-threaded, subtle, unfailing,
Blazing with the energy of double dharmas—
Seeing him, one sees everything.
Just a portion of the energy that exists within the sky
is ‘Ud’, in the middle of the sun. It becomes two rays.
This is ‘the knower of unity’, the one who has truth as
his dharma. This is the yajus; this is asceticism; this is fire;
this is air; this is breath; this is water; this is the moon;
this is the pure; this is the immortal; this is the realm of
brahman; this is the ocean of light. In it, patrons of the
sacrifice are dissolved like salt. This is the oneness of brahman:
in it, all desires are brought together. On this folk say:
Like a lamp stirred by a slight breeze
He blazes up, the one who exists among the gods
The one who knows this is a knower of unity,
a knower of duality.
He comes to the one abode, and has that as self.
Those who constantly move above like water-drops,
Like lightning, the clouds’ flames, in the highest heaven,
Through the power of their source, of the splendour of the flame,
Are like crests of black-tracked fire.
36. There are two forms of the light of brahman: the
‘peaceful’ is one, the ‘wealthy’ another. Space is the support
of the peaceful one, food of the wealthy one. So one must
sacrifice inside the ritual enclosure with mantras, herbs,
melted butter, meat, rice-cakes, the offering called
sthalipaka and so on; and in the mouth with the food left
over by the fire, thinking of the mouth as the Ahavantya—for
wealth of brightness, for the purpose of winning
meritorious worlds, and for immortality. On this folk say:
‘One should offer the Agnihotra while seeking heaven.’ By
the Agnistoma one wins the kingdom of Yama; by the Ukthya
the kingdom of Soma; by the Sodasin the kingdom of Surya;
by the Atiratra one’s own kingdom; by the rite that lasts to
the end of a thousand years, the rank of Prajapati,
As the existence of a lamp comes
From the joinine of wick, base and oil
Both self and the pure one exist
From the joining of the inner one and the egg.
37. The very own form of the sky is the supreme brightness
that exists within space. The very own form of the sky that
exists within space is the syllable, OM. It is disposed in
three forms: in fire, in the sun, and in the breath. By it one
perpetually wakes up, rises up, and recovers one’s breath.
So by OM one should worship the limitless brightness.
This channel takes the offering called ‘abundance of
food’ to the sun. The essence that has flowed from it
rains down the Udgitha. So because of the breaths (prana),
living beings (prana) are creatures. On this, folk say: ‘The
offering that is offered in the fire, it takes to the sun. The
sun rains it down with its rays. So it becomes food. From
that comes the uprising of beings.’
Someone has said:
The offering duly cast in the fire
Attends upon the sun.
From the sun arises rain:
From rain, food; from that, creatures.’
38. Offering the Agnihotra, one breaks the net of greed.
Then, having cut through delusion, not praising angry states,
meditating on one’s desire—Then one breaks the sheath of
brahman with its four layers of net. For here are the spheres
of Surya, Soma, Agni and purity (sattva). Then, having broken
through farthest space one sees, resting in its own greatness,
that which rests within purity, unmoving, immortal, unfallen,
constant, named Visnu, the foundation beneath everything,
endowed with true desire, true resolve, and omniscience,
independent, made of intelligence. On this folk say:
‘Soma rests in the midst of the sun;
Brightness rests in the midst of Soma;
Purity rests in the midst of brightness;
The unfallen rests in the midst of purity,
When one meditates on it, its body a span or a thumb
in length,242 subtler than the subtle, one attains supremacy.
Here all desires are brought together. On this folk say:
The one whose body is a thumb or a span in length
Radiant with light, double or threefold,
Brahman, greatness who is praised,
As a god has entered all beings.’
OM homage: homage to brahman.
